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The voices of a growing number of influential politicians and innovators are more loudly proclaiming the importance of preserving the United States’ supposed lead in the cryptocurrency industry.

‘The US Cannot Afford to Lose Its Place as the Front-Runner in Crypto’

The importance of maintaining world technological supremacy is gaining momentum. In the United States, defenders of innovation and job creation are pushing for giving Bitcoin (BTC) and other cryptocurrencies some breathing space.

In this regard, Thomas W. Hodge, Senior Associate Attorney at Brock & Scott PLLC and founder of Crypto and Policy, argues that the US has always nurtured the growth of new technologies entering the market. “We foster its growth rather than stifle it with burdensome regulations,” he said, adding:

Today there are many new technologies on the horizon: artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles and perhaps most importantly, cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology, which will change the way we conduct our lives — from banking to voting […] Simply put, the United States cannot afford to lose its place as the front-runner in crypto.

To this end, Hodge joins the congressman for Minnesota, Tom Emmer, in asking to not stifle free market competition and have government regulatory bodies to provide transparency on their regulatory intentions.

America’s technology companies are important job creators that lead the country in innovation. Stifling free-market competition is the wrong approach to growing our economy. Don’t let @ewarren#BreakTheEconomy

Hodge hopes for renewed leadership in the Congressional Blockchain Caucus and changes at the US Securities Exchange Commission (SEC). According to Hodge, these developments will encourage cryptocurrency companies “to continue to drive innovations in ‘fintech’ around the world.”

‘The SEC Must Open Its Doors to Innovation’

At the SEC, key officials are moving towards improving the treatment of crypto technologies. For some time, Commissioner Hester Peirce has been proposing to open the SEC to innovation and free enterprise. She complains:

[W]e regulate an industry that is a key gatekeeper for progress and productivity in the rest of the economy.

Specifically, Pierce calls for an innovative and improved regulatory framework that is more adaptable to the cryptocurrency industry.

As the 2020 U.S. presidential election approaches, crypto enthusiasts are eager to spot Bitcoin-friendly candidates and to know how their policies will foster innovation and entrepreneurship.

Already, one candidate has declared he will be accepting campaign donations in cryptocurrencies. Andrew Yang is a presidential candidate and proponent of a universal basic income. He recently announced that he accepts donations in Bitcoin, Ethereum, and any other cryptocurrency complying with the ERC20 standard, as well as Venmo payments.

Do you think the US government should foster the growth of the crypto industry to maintain technological supremacy? Don’t hesitate to let us know in the comments below!

XRP has reclaimed the position of the second largest cryptocurrency by market cap from ETH just days before Ethereum’s ‘Constantinople’ hard-fork upgrade.

Pre-Fork Drop

On January 16th, Ethereum is scheduled to undergo a network-wide system update called ‘Constantinople’. Among other things, the implementation of the upgrade will reduce the block reward from 3 ETH/block to 2 ETH/block.

Days before the event, however, Ethereum’s (ETH) 00 price experienced a notable decline.

In a matter of minutes, ETH price dropped by about 8 percent.

The movement caused ETH to fall behind Ripple (XRP), which reclaimed its spot as the second largest cryptocurrency by means of market capitalization, less than two weeks after Ethereum regained the number two spot from XRP.

In fact, the two have been neck and neck over the pastfew months in cryptocurrency market cap rankings.

XRP 00 also experienced a decrease around the same time, but the cryptocurrency experienced a relatively smaller loss of 2.5 percent against the USD.

Ethereum’s ‘Constantinople’

Constantinople is a system upgrade scheduled for implementation at block 7,080,000. Given the current average block time, the event should take place on January 16th, 2019.

One of the most discussed changes that the upgrade will cause is the reduction of block reward from the current 3 ETH/block to 2 ETH/block. This is also referred to as the “thirdening.” It’s the second time Ethereum’s block rewards have been reduced.

The first one was called “Byzantium” and it took place on October 16th, 2017. Back then, ETH surged by about 6 percent during the day, followed by the cryptocurrency’s late 2017 rally to an all-time high of about $1,400.

Bitcoin Script Language is Limited, For Now

According to a new research from Blockstream on Simplicity – a blockchain applications language – distributed ledgers pose a range of unique challenges, which make traditional programming languages unfit.

What’s more, Bitcoin’s Script language is limited to certain combinations of signature checks, hashlocks, and timelocks. Second layer solutions, on the other hand, such as the Lightning Network, for example, have been built on these primitives and, hence, lack the necessary expressiveness for more complicated smart contracts.

The paper also cites a recent upgrade failure of Ethereum’s EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machince), caused by a disagreement of implementations on the results of a certain computation, resulting in lost funds.

Simplicity: Complex Bitcoin Smart Contracts

According to the research, Simplicity is capable of providing the necessary flexibility for a wide range of computations, while, at the same time, allowing users to verify the security, costs, and safety of smart contracts.

Furthermore, the low-level programing language is also purportedly capable of solving certain previously required tradeoffs between reliability and expressiveness.

As it stands now, developers are either able to build a complex yet unreliable smart contract (think The DAO) or they are able to build a basic but reliable one. Thus, Simplicity would make make it easier to write complex smart contracts that are more reliable.

It’s also worth noting that this isn’t the first project which aims to enable effective smart contracts for Bitcoin’s network.

The potential solution has already caught the attention of Bitcoin investor Trace Mayer who said the Simplicity language “can help take things to a whole new level.”

Many people totally miss the point of a blockchain. Simplicity will help take things to a whole new level!

“The job of a blockchain is to verify computation, rather than to do computation.”

Earlier in May, Bitcoinistreported that the RSK project, which intends to build Turing-complete smart-contract capabilities for Bitcoin. RSK has partnered up with iExec in order to deliver off-chain computing and to enable dApps to access on-demand cloud computing resources.

What do you think of Simplicity’s ability to enable complex smart contracts on Bitcoin’s network? Don’t hesitate to let us know in the comments below!

Only $100k Separates Ripple and Ethereum

As data from Coinmarketcap confirms, Ripple’s XRP token is now the largest altcoin, losing less than Ethereum in the past 24 hours. As a result, ETH is now in the third-largest cryptocurrency, repeating what has become a pattern in 2018.

As Bitcoinist previously reported, XRP last overtook ETH fairly recently on the back of rumored expansion of the token’s usage.

XRP/USD 00 fell 9.2 percent, the difference in market cap between the two altcoins now just $100,000.

No Cause To Celebrate

The short-term success of XRP contrasts with the continued publicity battle Ripple has seen in recent months.

As Ethereum developers forge ahead with major technical developments many have championed, Ripple appears mired in criticism of both its products and senior executives, who have delivered contradictory statements about the company.

In October, CEO Brad Garlinghouse hit back at accusations the network was overly centralized.

“I as the CEO of the company can’t control the XRP ledger. I can’t change a transaction,” he told Cheddar.

“…I think there are a lot of people out there who are waging holy wars, they’re spreading misinformation – and they’re spreading misinformation because they have an economic interest in that.”

Nonetheless, third-party interest in the token remains with news this week surfacing that Japan’s biggest bank wishes to use it as the basis for a cross-border remittance service to Brazil.

Multiple financial institutions are currently considering the concept of Ripple-based remittances, with the company’s xRapid payment network also debuting with XRP as its means of exchange.

What do you think about Ripple overtaking Ethereum? Let us know in the comments below!

Bitly (bit.ly) has come under fire from cryptocurrency circles after the business appeared to block all the links from Andreas Antonopoulos’ new book.

Bitly Silent On Surprise Block

Antonopoulos, who is weeks away from publishing his latest guide, ‘Mastering Ethereum,’ publicly took issue with the URL shortening service and link management platform on social media after a tip-off about it preventing around 200 of the book’s links from opening.

“I’m about to publish my 4th book and it has about 200 http://bit.ly links in it,” he wrote on Twitter November 3.

“If you are going to block links, I will need to remove all 200 and replace them with a competitor[.]”

Bitly has existed since 2008 and currently sees monthly traffic of around 600 million link shortenings.

As of press time, officials had not responded to Antonopoulos’ tweet, and the cause and future status of the block remains unknown.

‘Not Your Shortener, Not Your Link’?

In the absence of an explanation from Bitly, Twitter users were swift to call for a “decentralized” alternative to private link shorteners, identifying them as a bottleneck.

“Don’t rely on bitly or ANY shortener service. They are all a single point of failure,” one response read.

Not your keys, not your bitcoin? Not your shortner (sic), not your link.

The tone echoes recent calls among some cryptocurrency figures to abandon the traditional stalwarts of the online ecosystem, Bitcoinist previously reporting on an increasing distaste for Twitter itself in favor of decentralized open source alternative Mastodon.

The Bitly episode is the latest headache for Antonopoulos on the road to publishing Mastering Ethereum, the celebrated educator previously defending his choice of subject material in the face of fans who appeared confused about a refocusing away from Bitcoin 00 to altcoins.

Mastering Ethereum is due for publication within the next four weeks, Antonopoulos further confirmed.

What do you think about Bitly blocking links from ‘Mastering Ethereum’? Let us know in the comments below!

Bitcoin could end 2018 at $22,000, Fundstrat Global Investors analyst Tom Lee repeated in new predictions about the end of the cryptocurrency bear market October 19.

Lee: 200-day MA ‘Very Important’

Speaking during an interview with social media blog Crypto Tips, Lee, who is known for his bullish stance on Bitcoin in particular, highlighted the 200-day moving average price trend as a key factor in determining its future performance.

“When Bitcoin’s below its 200-day, it only goes up 50 percent of the time in the next sixth months, but when it’s above its 200-day, it’s up 80 percent of the time,” he said referring to analysis produced by Fundstrat last week.

“The 200-day and the trend that’s implied by that is obviously very important.

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Ethereum ‘Capitulated’?

Far from a continuation of this year’s price downturn, Lee added he thinks it is “more likely” that Bitcoin 00 would put in an unexpected climb.

That hypothesis runs counter to assumptions shared by many other analysts within the cryptocurrency industry, who have endorsed an idea BTC/USD must first ‘bottom’ as low as $3000 before finally challenging its all-time highs.

For Lee, $6000 is the “floor.”

“Where can the surprise take place? I know a lot of people think Bitcoin’s price will collapse to $3000; I think what’s more probable a surprise is that we have a very explosive increase in price,” he continued.

For Ethereum (ETH) 00 meanwhile, Lee also saw support returning to markets. The largest altcoin by market cap had fallen more precipitously than Bitcoin, at one point trading as low as $170 in recent months, its worst performance since May 2017.

“…Ethereum is already trading like it’s capitulated,” he said.

In 2018, a combination of factors including the EOS ICO, ICOs in general, BitMEX’s ETH futures and media “hitjobs” had created a “negative” story around the asset.

What do you think about Tom Lee’s predictions? Let us know in the comments below!

Ether (ETH) prices “capitulating” in September was “significant” to ending the 2018 cryptocurrency bear market, according to a new theory from one cryptocurrency analyst.

Thies: ‘We Were Looking In The Wrong Place’

In a series of tweets, UTR Equity’s crypto market commentator Eric Thies postulated that Bitcoin’s run to all-time price highs in December 2017 came as a result of Ether investment during the ICO phenomenon.

When interest slowed, so too did prices begin to freefall — Bitcoin reaching lows below $5900 in February this year and Ether below $170 in September.

“(Bitcoin’s) run in the end of 2017 was fueled by a MASSIVE ICO (ERC20) bubble and therefore indirectly fueled via ETH. Meaning that ETH capitulating in early Sept was significant to ending the bear market,” he wrote, noting the concept was a “theory.”

“We were all looking in the wrong place, expecting (Bitcoin) to do it.”

Theory: $BTC ‘s run in the end of 2017 was fueled by a MASSIVE ICO (ERC20) bubble and therefore indirectly fueled via $ETH.

Meaning that $ETH capitulating in early Sept was significant to ending the bear market.

The ‘When Moon?’ Question

Commentators across the cryptocurrency industry and beyond have long sought a narrative to accompany the continued ‘slow bleed’ performance of most assets this year.

As Bitcoinist reported, talk of institutional investors entering to prop up prices continues to contrast with technical analyses suggesting price declines have not yet finished.

While most sources agree that a decisive U-turn cannot be far off, disagreements remain as to the real impact of institutional money or other factors on the industry, should these appear in the short term.

The future of real estate and the mortgage business are set to be revolutionized by tokenized properties.

Now Everyone Gets a Slice

A $30 million Manhattan building has become New York City’s first luxury property to be tokenized on blockchain. The building is located in East Village and contains twelve 1,700 square foot condos. The entire property is now represented by an unconfirmed number of tokens on a public blockchain, and each token stands for a fractional value of each property.

Tokenizing the property now allows people with a small amount of money to invest in real estate and this could be a game changer for those living in expensive cities with sky-high property prices. Ryan Serhant, the celebrity star of Bravo’sMillion Dollar Listing New Yorkbrokered the deal. Serhant explained to Forbes that tokenized property and financing could:

[…] remove the unruly pressure of traditional bank financing, which is much healthier for the project and all of the stakeholders.

Blockchain Will Bring a Real Estate Revolution

This new method of digitally representing ownership of tangible assets on blockchain has already taken hold in the world of fine arts — a Warhol painting recently auctioned for $5.6 million via Ethereum blockchain.

The sale of the New York property was the result of a partnership between blockchain tokenization experts Fluidity and Propellr, the latter of which is a digital assets firm. Propellr CEO Todd Lippiatt believes that blockchain technology and tokenized assets will revolutionize the real estate and securities market as “traditional securities structures and issuance frameworks haven’t evolved in a long time.”

Do you think tokenized properties level the playing field for all investors? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

The bullish trend isn’t going to be for at least a few more months, according to a technical expert from Fundstrat Global Advisors. He holds that time is needed for the market to recover the technical damage developed through the year.

Bulls Will Have to Wait

At the time of writing this, Bitcoin (BTC) 00 marks a slight decrease of less than one percent for the last 24 hours. The market’s leader also managed to stand its ground for the last week as.

However, having peaked at around $7,400 earlier in September, the cryptocurrency trades about 13 percent below its monthly high.

According to Rob Sluymer, though, an analyst at Fundstrat Global Advisors, bulls will have to wait for a while. In a recent note to clients, the technical expert outlined:

Given the technical damage that has developed in 2018, we expect most cryptocurrencies will likely require months of repair before a new bullish trend can develop. […] This is consistent with post-bear-market behavior that has developed in other asset classes following bear markets.

A Bit More Positive

Earlier this month, the Head Analyst and Managing Partner at Fundstrat Global Advisors, Tom Lee, expressed his positive sentiment on the price of Bitcoin, based on CBOE Global Markets’ intention to launch Ethereum future contracts. Lee said:

Since December of this year, if one was bearish on any aspect of crypto but did not want to own the underlying, they could short BTC. They can now short ETH, means the net short on BTC in futures would fall.

Ethereum (ETH) 00 marks a slight weekly decrease of about 3 percent. In the last 30 days, however, the world’s second largest cryptocurrency is down with around 23 percent.

What do you think of Rob Sluymer’s position on the current state of the cryptocurrency market? Don’t hesitate to let us know in the comments below!

On September 24th, Lamassu announced the introduction of their new line of cryptocurrency ATMs to the public. Lamassu calls its new line of ATMs, “Sintra.” The ATMs herald a new line of ATMs as another crucial step in crypto’s march towards widespread consumer use and accessibility.

Growing Industry

According to CoinATMrader.com, there are currently roughly 3,750 crypto ATMs installed worldwide. Lamassu has been producing cryptocurrency ATMs since 2013 when they produced their first, which was called the Bitcoin Machine.

While that number sounds impressive, and the number of the crypto ATMs installed continues to grow steadily, it is important to put that number in context. Information from Data.gov, for example, indicates that there are over 5,500 bank-owned ATMs in New York State alone. Crucially, this ATM count does not include independently managed ATMs at convenience stores and other retail locations.

Cost

Pricing for the new crypto ATM’s ranges from 5,200 EU for the cheapest Duoro II model, to 8,900 EU for the highest price Sintra Forte model. The mid-priced Sintra model costs 7,500 EU. The Duoro II model is the newest model of Lamassu’s original Crypto ATM, and features one-way fiat to crypto conversion, while both the Sintra and Sintra Forte feature two-way conversion.

The new models offer a bevy of features, designed to make buying and selling crypto through the machines as painless as possible. The machines feature a sleek, futuristic look, and are all crafted in Portugal. The body of the machines is crafted out of 2.5mm steel for extra durability.

Owners of these machines can configure their ATM’s to take almost any major currency, and support conversions from fiat to Bitcoin, Zcash, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, and Dash.

While Lamassu does not directly facilitate transactions on the ATM, it does offer a backend exchange trading engine that can steer conversions to liquidity providers. Lamassu’s engine is currently connected to BitPay, Bitstamp, Kraken, and Coinbase.

Fees and Regulatory Issues

ATM operators have control over the fee structure charged by their machines and can profit by either charging direct fees or adjusting the spread charged by their liquidity provider.

On Lamassu’s website, the estimates indicate that a machine needs roughly $800-$1,000 worth of daily transactions to break-even. Lamassu estimates that the average monthly turnover on their machines is roughly $20,000 and rising.

The Sintra line of ATMs features numerous compliance features, but investors interested in purchasing and managing a machine need to do their due diligence regarding the legality of operating an ATM in their jurisdiction.

Prospective ATM operators in the United States must ensure they are following both federal and state laws. Bitcoin ATMs would currently fall under the criteria of “Exchangers,” according to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. In turn, they must register as “Money Service Businesses.” If you are interested in purchasing a machine in the United States, this primer is a handy starting point.

As interest in Crypto continues to grow among the retail investing community, ATMs will likely be a key “on-ramp” for investors into the crypto industry.

What do you think of Lamassu’s New ATMs? Let us know in the comments below!